Here at GR, people are always telling us “sure you got the news pretty much down pat, but who is behind GR?” Well, I’m here to introduce a new weekly segment called Reporting Gamers. Clever, I know, we can forgo the tons of emails praising my skills at turning a phrase, it’s fine. Basically, each week, different staff members and regulars from the website will provide what will basically amount to a blog entry. This is so you, our readers, can fully understand that we here at GR are not just news reporting robots. Anything that the poster in question feels like writing about, they can. Rants, raves, complaints, info on what they are playing – it is all fair game. As long as it has to do with gaming or the website, that is. We do not want to know about that rash on your nipples that refuses to go away. Any regulars who wish to contribute to GamersReporting for the week, simply email your entry to [email protected], and we will likely post it. This includes regulars and forum goers, you know you who are. So let’s kick off the inaugural GamersReporting entry, shall we?

As this is my first post, I want to take the opportunity to explain a few things that people frequently ask me about the website, me being the de facto head honcho around here. Firstly, one of the main questions/complaints we receive here at GR is to ask why our reviews take so long to post. Well, forgetting the fact that I pretty much write all the reviews myself, I think that reviewers have a certain obligation to the readers which has been lacking lately. No names, but you know the sites I mean. I cannot tell you the number of times that I have read a review at another website and said to myself, “this is totally inaccurate, if they just looked in the first page of the options menu they would have been able to remedy this problem easily.” To me, this is inexcusable. That being said, I take a week or two from the release date to play the games to as full extent as I can, in order to bring that information to bear when I do finally write the review. Today’s websites are too interested in pushing out the reviews on release day or a day after, just to get the hits in and get that ad money before it dries up. We here at GR do not subscribe to that theory, at least not yet!

Now, on to what exactly I did this week – Arkadian Warriors! Of course, 800 MS points seems pretty steep for Diablo lite with super deformed characters, but I enjoyed it. It took about 6 hours to beat the game with one character type, and there are three to choose from. Of course, the game’s single player is fun, but it even has a dungeon-crawling co-op mode! The lag sometimes makes it unplayable, but, after all, it is just Xbox Live Arcade, the sometimes-forgotton red-headded stepchild of the Xbox360. The bottom line is, the game is decent, and if you need a nice little dungeon crawler to pass the time that includes a sword that turns enemies into chickens, then buy it and play it and 800 MS points be damned!

Now on to one gripe I have this week. Well, it is more of an acute fear that is beginning to wake me at night to find myself crying out Capcom in a cold sweat – Street Fighter IV. The recently released screenshots from this 2D/3D game (aka 2.5D) give me reason for pause. The bubble nature of Ryu’s muscles and the unfinished, cartoon-like look of Ken’s face are telling me that the sprite/polygon animation quality of the game may be cast to the side in favor of the “3Dness” of it all. This is a bad, bad, move Capcom, especially when you have legions of 2D fighting fans who still play SFII and SFIII who you have an unspoken promise with. The promise that the fourth game will play as well as the ones that came before. No more Capcom Fighting Evolution please, and we already have Street Fighter EX for the 3D fans, of which there is one left I believe, and he is married to a Guilty Gear player now, apparently. The point is, Capcom better shape up and reassure some of us hardcore Street Fighters out here, or else come 2008 when the game hits, things might get a bit disappointing, to put it lightly.Well folks, there you have my first GamersReporting entry, and there will be more to come every week. Feel free to share this with friends, family, and anyone else you like. Comments are welcome and wanted – please, tell me and the rest of the posters where and how painfully we can go fornicate ourselves. This is the kind of feedback we love here at GR, especially when you include colorful language that would make a sailor blush! Email your posts to [email protected] remember.-DM